The conference opening keynote address will be delivered by Mark Scott, Managing Director of the ABC and other highlights include Craig Lapsley, Victoria’s Fire Services Commissioner Nancy Rigg, pioneer in US swiftwater rescue reform and Hugh Riminton from Network Ten.

The Media Panel session will be hosted by Bruce Esplin, former Emergency Services Commissioner. The panel will include:

Well it’s been a long and busy day here in Canberra for day one of the Emergency Media and Public Affairs conference for 2011. The day was a more casual approach, a workshop run in the ‘world cafe’ style. For those of you not familiar with world cafe (which was most of us!), the aim is to spilt into tables and have the level of discussion you have have with your friends if you opened that second bottle of wine. Quiet an interesting way of going about it, and one that I think worked very well.

The aim was to have varing degrees of emergency management experience represented on each table, along with a media representitive.

Firstly we were to discuss what common ground emergency media communicators and media staff have in common, then onto issues and differences.

Tables were rotating (not the tables, but the participants!) under the following topics:
Working to deadline
Gathering facts versus the information vaccum
Facts, rumours and misinformation
Emergency warnings versus editorial content
Text, tweet, blog…the citizen journalist
Access to spokespeople

Table leaders, if you will, summarised the discussions at the end of the alloted time, and notes were taken, with the aim of coming up with guidelines and principals that emergency media communicators and media staff can use as a guide for collaboration to build on. Over the course of the conference the principals will be drafted, with the aim of testing them out on Tuesday, the last day of the conference.

A reminder, you can follow the conference on Twitter, @EmergMediaConf, and by using the hashtag #EMPA2011.

Well, we’re nearly there! The Emergency Media and Public Affairs conference kicks off Sunday in Canberra with a world cafe workshop, facilitated by Anne Leadbeater, with papers being presented through Monday and Tuesday. I’m really looking forward to it.

I’d like to thank Denis, Kristin, Susan, Simon, Axel, Steve and Anne who have posted guest blogs over the last few weeks. We’ve got a wide varity of papers to look forward to that I’m sure will generate some exciting debate.

I’ll try and post daily updates, but make sure to follow EMPA on Twitter for updates throughout the Conference. Please join the conversation using the hashtag #EMPA.